Lynne Graham
Reluctant Mistress, Blackmailed Wife

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

AS WRY amusement lit his eyes, which could be as dark and deep as an underground river, Alexandros Christakis watched his grandfather walk round the sleek silver Ascari KZ1 he had just had delivered. A supercar, it was the ultimate boy-toy, for only fifty would ever be built. The older man’s excitement at being that close to such a rare and powerful vehicle was palpable.

‘A car that costs almost a quarter of a million.’ Pelias, tall and straight in spite of his seventy-five years, shook his grizzled head and smiled with almost boyish approval. ‘It is sheer madness, but it does my heart good to see you taking an interest in such things again!’

Alexandros said nothing in response to that leading comment, his expression unrevealing, his legendary reserve impenetrable. Gossip columnists regularly referred to the billionaire head of the CTK Bank as beautiful. Alexandros loathed the press, and had little time for such frivolity. His lean, bronzed features might have a breathtaking symmetry that turned female heads wherever he went, but the forceful angle of his jawline, the tough slant of his cheekbones and the obdurate set of his wide, sensual mouth suggested a fierce strength of character that was more of a warning to the unwary.

‘You’re still a young man—only thirty-one years old.’ Pelias Christakis spoke with caution, for he had long been in awe of his brilliant grandson and rarely dared breach his reticence. ‘Naturally I understand that you will never forget your grief, but it is time for you to take up your life once more.’

Marvelling at the oldman’s essential innocence, Alexandros murmured flatly, ‘I took my life back a long time ago.’

‘But all you have done since Ianthe passed away is work, and make more and more money from bigger and bigger deals! How much money can one man need in a lifetime? How many homes can one man use?’ Pelias Christakis flung up his hands in an extrovert gesture that encompassed the superb Regency country house in front of him. And Dove Hall was only one item in his grandson’s vast property portfolio. ‘You are already rich beyond most men’s dreams.’

‘I thought onwards and upwards was the Christakis motto.’ Alexandros brooded on the unhappy truth that people were never satisfied. He had been raised to be an Alpha-male high-achiever, with the merciless killer instincts of a shark. He was competitive, ambitious, and aggressive when challenged. Every aspect of his upbringing had been carefully tailored to ensure that he grew up as the exact opposite of his late father, who had been a lifelong layabout and an embarrassment to his family.

‘I’m proud of you—immensely proud,’ his grandfather hastened to assert in an apologetic undertone. ‘But the world can offer you so much more than the next takeover or merger. Companionship may seem an old-fashioned concept—’

‘Of course there have been women.’ Alexandros compressed his handsome mouth, only his respect for the older man’s good intentions restraining him from the delivery of a more caustic response. ‘Is that what you want to hear?’

Pelias raised a beetling brow in rueful emphasis. ‘I’ll be more interested to hear that you’ve been with the same woman for longer than a week!’

Exasperated by that censorious response, Alexandros immediately grasped what his grandfather was driving at, and cold annoyance overpowered tolerance. ‘But I’m not in the market for anything serious. I have no intention of getting married again.’

His companion treated him to a look of surprise. ‘Did I mention marriage?’

Unimpressed by that air of virtuous naivety—for Pelias was not a good dissembler—Alexandros said nothing. He was grimly aware that the very fact that he was an only child put an extra weight of expectation and responsibility on him. Traditional Greek culture set great store on the carrying on of the family name. Understandably, his grandparents held the convictions of their age group. But Alexandros felt equally entitled to his own views, and believed that only honesty would suffice. As he had not the slightest desire to be a father, he had no plans to remarry. Becoming a parent had been his late wife’s dream, if not her obsession. Now that Ianthe was gone, he saw no reason to pretend otherwise.

‘I don’t want another wife…or children, for that matter,’ Alexandros admitted in a flat, unapologetic undertone, his lean dark face aloof. ‘I appreciate that this must disappoint you, but that’s how it is and I’m not going to change.’

Pelias Christakis had lost colour. Stripped of all the natural exuberance of his warm, engaging personality, he suddenly looked old, troubled, and very much at a loss. Feeling like the guy who had not only killed but also tortured Santa Claus, Alexandros suppressed any urge to soften the blow and raise false hopes. It had had to be said.

Now a veteran at jumble sales, Katie leapt straight into the competitive fray, rummaging through the pile of baby clothes. Emerging victorious with an incredibly smart little jacket and trouser set, she asked the lady on the stall, ‘How much for this?’

It was more than she could afford, and she put it back with a regret that was only fleeting—because she had long since learned that her real priorities were shelter, food and warmth. Clothes came fourth on her survival list of necessities, so newness and smartness were almost always out of reach. She found a sweater and a pair of jeans at a price within her means. Though both garments were shabby they had plenty of life left in them. The twins were growing so fast that keeping them clothed was a constant challenge. As she paid, the lady offered to reduce the price on the trouser set, but Katie flushed and said no thanks, for she had now spent what she had to spare. The pity she saw in the woman’s eyes embarrassed her.

‘They’re lovely boys,’ the stallholder said reluctantly. She had noticed that Katie’s hands were bare of rings, and although she hoped she was a charitable woman she very much disapproved of young unwed mothers.

Katie glanced at her sons, seated side by side in the worn twin buggy, and a rueful smile of maternal pride crept across the weary line of her mouth. Toby and Connor were gorgeous babies, and very well advanced for their age of nine months. The combination of black curly hair, pale golden skin and big brown eyes gave them an angelic air that was rather deceptive. The twins thrived on attention and activity, screeched the place down when disappointed, whinged at length when bored, and required very little sleep. But Katie absolutely adored them, and often studied them with the dazed feeling that she could not possibly have given birth to two such clever and beautiful children. Not only did they not look like her, they did not act like her either. Only in low moments, when she was fighting total exhaustion, was she willing to admit that she was finding it a real struggle to cope with their constant demands.

On the walk home, she found herself looking at other young women. It bothered her when she caught herself thinking that the ones without kids seemed more youthful, light-hearted and attractive. She saw her reflection in a shop window and stared, her heart sinking. Suddenly she wanted to cry. There had been a time when, had she made the required effort, she would have been called pretty. Now that was just a memory, and she was a small thin girl with a pinched face and red hair caught back in a ponytail. She looked nondescript and plain. She swallowed hard, knowing that Toby and Connor’s father would never look at her now.

Once she had marvelled that he had ever deigned to notice her. She had thought it was so romantic that a dazzlingly attractive male who could have had literally any woman should instead have chosen her. But the passage of time and cruel experience had destroyed her fanciful illusions one by one and forced her to face less palatable truths. Now Katie accepted that he had only noticed her because she had been the sole female in his vicinity when he’d felt like sex. She had given him what he wanted without making a single demand. He had never at any stage regarded her as anything other than a social inferior—for he had never even taken her out on a date. When her breathless adoration had palled, he had dumped her so hard and fast she still shivered thinking about it. Nothing had ever hurt her as much as that cold, harsh descent from fantasy to reality.

Only a few minutes after she’d got back to her bedsit, her landlord appeared at her door. ‘You’ll have to go,’ he told her bluntly. ‘I’ve had another complaint about the noise your kids make at night.’

Katie stared at him in horror. ‘But all babies cry—’

‘And two babies make twice as much of a din.’

‘I swear I’ll try to keep them quieter—’

‘You said that the last time I spoke to you, and nothing’s changed,’ the older man cut in, unimpressed. ‘You’ve had your warning and I’m giving you two weeks’ notice. If you don’t move out willingly, I’ll have you evicted. So let’s keep it simple. Get yourself down to Social Services and they’ll soon sort you out with another place!’

Appalled at his belligerent attitude, Katie tried in vain to reason with him. Long after he had gone, she sat with her arms wrapped round herself while she fought the awful feeling of despair stealing over her. She was painfully aware that she had virtually no hope of fighting such a decree when complaints had been lodged against her. Her tenancy was only of the unassured variety, and she did not even feel she could blame the other tenants for kicking up a fuss. The walls were paper-thin and the twins did regularly cry at night.

The bedsit needed decorating, the furniture was battered and the shared facilities were dismal. But the room had still come to feel like home to Katie. Furthermore, the building was in good repair and the area was reasonably respectable and safe. She was not afraid to walk down the street. Unlike during her pregnancy, when she had spent a couple of months in a flat on an inner city estate. Drug dealing and gang warfare had been a way of life there, and she had been terrified every time she’d had to go out.

Although she had been about to put Toby and Connor down for a nap, she realised that she would have to go straight back out again. In two short weeks she would be homeless, and she needed to give the housing authorities as much time as possible to locate alternative accommodation for them. Just when had she sunk so low that she no longer had the power to help herself? She blinked back a sudden rush of tears. She was twenty-three years old. She had always been a doer—independent, energetic and industrious. But she had not realised how difficult it would be to raise two children alone. She had not realised how poor she would be either. Indeed, in the latter stages of pregnancy she had made enthusiastic plans about getting her career back on track. She had expected to return to fulltime employment, not end up dependent on welfare handouts for survival. Ill-health, accommodation problems, transport costs and sleepless nights had slowly but surely destroyed her hopes.

A week crawled past, during which Katie did everything she could to find somewhere else to live. But the few leads she had got turned into dead ends. Midway through the second week she began to panic, and a social worker informed her that she would have to go into emergency bed and breakfast accommodation.

‘You’ll hate it,’ her friend Leanne Carson declared. ‘The room won’t be yours to do what you want with, and there probably won’t be any cooking facilities.’

‘I know,’ Katie muttered heavily.

‘Crying babies won’t be flavour of the month there either.’ The pretty blue-eyed brunette whom Katie had met in hospital sighed, ‘You’ll be moved on again in no time. Why are you being such a doormat?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You told me that the twins’ dad had money. Why don’t you spread a little of that cash in your own direction? If the stingy creep is newsworthy and wealthy enough, you could sell your story to the press.’

‘Don’t be daft.’ Katie pressed pale fingers to her pounding temples.

‘Of course you’d have to spice the story up. Ten-times-a-night sex, how insatiable or kinky his demands were—you know the sort of thing…’

Katie reddened to the roots of her hair. ‘No, I don’t—’

‘The sordid details are what make tittle-tattle like that entertaining and worth oodles of cash. Don’t be such a prude! The guy’s a total bastard. He deserves to be embarrassed!’

‘Maybe he does, but I couldn’t do it. That’s not what I’m about. I appreciate that you’re only trying to help, but—’

‘You’re never going to get up out of the gutter with that bad attitude.’ Leanne rolled scornful eyes heavy with mascara and glittering blue shadow. ‘Are you just going to lie down and die? Let the bloke get away with it? If you really love your little boys, you’ll be ready to do whatever it takes to give them a better life!’

Katie flinched as though she had been slapped.

Leanne dealt her a defiant look. ‘It’s true, and you know it is. You’re letting the kids’ father…this Alexandros whatever…you’re letting him escape his responsibilities.’

‘I contacted the Child Support Agency—’

‘Yeah, like they’ve got the time and resources to try and pin your kids on some foreign business tycoon! He’s rich. He’d refuse to take DNA tests, or he’d stay out of the country, or pretend he’d lost all his money. If you insist on playing it by the book, you’ll never see a penny from him,’ the other woman forecast with cynical conviction. ‘No, if you ask me, you’re only going to escape your current problems if you do a kiss-and-tell for the tabloids!’

Katie couldn’t sleep that night. She thought of the sacrifices her own mother had had to make to bring her up. Widowed when her daughter was only six, Maura had had to work as a cleaner, a caretaker and a cook to make ends meet. In the darkness, Katie lay still and taut with discomfiture. Alexandros had dumped her, ignored her appeal for help and broken her stupid heart. She had decided she would sooner starve than appeal to him again. But had she let false pride get in the way of her duty towards her infant sons? Was Leanne right? Could she have done more to press her case with Alexandros?

Two days later, Katie moved out of her bedsit with Leanne’s help. Luckily her friend was able to store some stuff for her. The surplus had to be dumped or passed on to be sold on a market stall, because Katie could not afford storage costs. The bed and breakfast hotel was crowded and her room was small, drab and depressing.

After spending her first night there, Katie rose heavy-eyed, but driven by a new and fierce determination. She had decided that she was willing to do whatever it took to give Toby and Connor a secure roof over their heads. The prospect of public embarrassment and humiliation and further rejection should not deter her. Right now she was letting her kids down by acting like a wimp, she told herself squarely. Leanne had been right to speak up. More vigorous action was definitely required.

With that in mind, Katie went to the library to use the internet and see if she could discover any new information about Alexandros. She had tried and failed several times before, and quite a few months had passed since her last effort. But this time the search offered her the option of trying an alternative name, and when she tried that link she stared in shock as the screen filled with potential sites. A recognisable photo of Alexandros folded down on the very first she visited.

It only then dawned on Katie that her previous searches had been unsuccessful because she had spelled his name as Crestakis, not Christakis. She had got his name wrong. She was stunned. That crucial yet simple mistake had ensured that she hadn’t found out that Alexandros was the chief executive of CTK Bank, which had a substantial office in London. All the time that she had been engaged in a desperate struggle for survival, Alexandros had been making regular trips to the UK!

For a while she just surfed, seeing him variously described as brilliant, beautiful, arctic-cool, impassive. This was the guy she had fallen crazily in love with, all right, although she had refused to accept back then that she was on a highway to nowhere. The nape of her neck prickled when she read a newspaper report about a merger announcement expected from CTK the next morning. If something big was in the air, Alexandros was almost certain to be putting in an appearance. If she got up early, she could go to the City, wait outside the bank, and try to intercept him when he arrived.

Of course she could also go the more normal route and ask for an appointment with him, couldn’t she? Her soft mouth down-curved at that idea. She was convinced that he wouldn’t agree to see her. After all, he had given her a useless phone number on which to contact him at their final meeting, and had also ignored her letter asking for his help. No, perhaps it would be wiser not to forewarn Alexandros. An element of surprise might just give her the edge she badly needed; she was no longer naive enough to believe that she could easily hold her own with someone that clever and callous.

Katie left the twins with Leanne at a very early hour the next day.

‘Now, don’t you take any nonsense off this guy,’ her friend warned her anxiously. ‘He’s got more to lose than you have.’

‘How do you make that out?’ Katie lowered Toby and then Connor into the playpen already occupied by Leanne’s daughter, Sugar. As always, she was looking around herself and wishing she was in a position to afford similar accommodation. Although her friend’s home was tiny, the rainbow pastels she favoured made the rooms feel bright and welcoming even on a dull day. Helped by a family support network that Katie lacked, Leanne worked as a hairdresser. Her mother often looked after her grandchild in the evenings, and her ex-boyfriend paid maintenance.

‘I bet you anything he won’t want a scandal,’ Leanne declared. ‘According to what I’ve read, bankers are supposed to be a very conservative bunch…anything else makes the punters nervous!’

Conservative? That adjective danced around in the back of Katie’s mind when she was on the bus. On first acquaintance, Alexandros had struck her as conservative—indeed, icily reserved and austere. She hadn’t liked him, hadn’t liked being treated like a servant, and had hated the innate habit of command that was so much a part of his bred-in-the-bone arrogant assurance. But not one of those facts had snuffed out the wicked longing he had stirred up inside her. Her response to him had shocked her, and shattered all her neat, bloodless little assumptions about her own nature. His sizzling passion had shocked her even more. He had just grabbed her up and kissed her, and then carried her off to bed without hesitation or discussion. She cringed at that recollection, which she rarely let out of her memory-bank. She had acted like a slut and—not surprisingly, in her opinion—he had treated her like one.

CTK Bank was situated in the heart of the City of London, an impressive contemporary edifice with a logo hip enough to front a top fashion brand. She stared up at the light-reflecting gleam of ranks of windows, marvelling at the sheer size and splendour of the office block. Anger flared through her nervous tension, making her restless. Alexandros Christakis was, she finally appreciated, a very wealthy and powerful man. She positioned herself at the corner of the building so that she could watch both the front and the side entrances. Employees were starting to arrive. Rain came on steadily, quickly penetrating the light jacket she wore and drenching her. With her head bent to avoid the downpour, she almost missed the big car purring to a discreet halt in the quiet side street.

Straightening with a jerk, she began to walk very fast towards the limo—if the VIP passenger was Alexandros she didn’t want to miss him. Two other cars had also pulled up—one to the front of the luxury vehicle, the second to the rear. Several men emerged and fanned out across the street. Katie’s scrutiny, however, was glued to the tall dark male descending from the limousine. The breeze ruffled his luxuriant ebony hair. Without warning, a painful sense of familiarity, sharp as a knife-blade, pierced Katie. She would have known him anywhere just by the angle of his imperious head and the economic grace with which he moved. The chill of sudden shocked recognition engulfed her. Her attention locked to his lean, powerful face, marking the straight slash of his black brows, the dark, deep-set allure of his brilliant gaze. Her tummy flipped and she was dazzled.

‘Alexandros…’ She tried to speak but her voice failed her. Because even though he could not have heard her, for she was still too far away, he did seem to be looking her way.

Alexandros had picked up on the alert stance of his security team and zeroed in on the source. But the instant he saw the small slender figure approaching him he knew her, and he was so surprised he stopped dead in his tracks. The wet gleam of her wine-red hair and her pale heart-shaped face struck a haunting chord that plunged him into an instant flashback. He remembered sunshine streaming through a rain-washed window over that amazing hair, lighting up eyes of an almost iridescent green. It had been a stark moment of truth in an interlude that he was reluctant to recall. One of his bodyguards blocked her path with practised ease, just as a posse of paparazzi came charging down the street behind her, waving cameras.

‘Inside, boss,’ Cyrus, his head of security urged as Alexandros hesitated. ‘Paparazzi and a homeless kid…could be a set-up!’

In one long stride, Alexandros mounted the steps and vanished into the building. A set-up? A homeless kid? Cyrus could only have been referring to Katie. Why was she still dressing like a scruffy student? And why had she come to see him? He could not believe that her sudden appearance after so long would be a coincidence. What did she want from him? Why would she try to approach him in a public place? Had the paparazzi been waiting and watching to see if he acknowledged her, ready to spring some kind of a trap in which he was the target? Hard suspicion flaring in his shrewd gaze, he told Cyrus to watch Katie’s every move.

It took a lot to surprise Cyrus, but that instruction achieved it.

‘The female you assumed was a homeless kid? Her name is Katie Fletcher. Don’t let your team lose her!’ Alexandros warned in rapid Greek. ‘Follow her. I want to know where she lives.’

As his efficient security chief hurried back outside to carry out his orders, Alexandros switched back into working mode. Stepping into the executive lift held in readiness for him, he was immediately immersed in a quote of the latest share prices and the final adjustments to the press release to be made about the merger. When another memory tried to surface from his usually disciplined subconscious, he rooted it out with ruthless exactitude. He was not introspective. He did not relive past mistakes. In fact he had long since accepted that on the emotional front he was as cold as his reputation.

At the end of his first meeting he discovered that he had printed a K and encircled it, and the knowledge of that brief loss of concentration, that subliminal weakness that had defied his control, infuriated him.

Taken aback by the blocking technique of the security man, who had got in her way, and then rudely crowded off the pavement by the heaving, shouting and disgruntled members of the press, who had surged past her in an effort to get at Alexandros, Katie was momentarily at a loss. Alexandros had seen her. But had he recognised her? Had he sent that beefy security guy to ward her off? Would he have spoken to her if the journalists had not been present?

She thought not. He hadn’t smiled, hadn’t shown the smallest sign that a friendly welcome might be in the offing. He was such a bastard, she thought painfully, a horrible sense of failure seeping through her. But even as her shoulders drooped, a defiant spirit of rebellion was powering her up again. She marched back round the corner and through the front doors of the bank, and right up to the reception desk.

‘I’d like to speak to Mr Christakis,’ she announced.

The receptionist who came to attend to her studied Katie fixedly, as if trying to decide whether or not she was pulling her leg. In that intervening moment of assessment Katie became uncomfortably aware of her sodden hair and shabby jacket and jeans.

‘I’ll take your name.’ The elegant young woman behind the desk switched on her professional cool. ‘But I should warn you that Mr Christakis is exceptionally busy and his appointments are usually booked months in advance. Perhaps you could see someone else?’

‘I want to see Alexandros. Someone else won’t do. Please just see that he gets my name. He knows me.’ Aware of the silent disbelief which greeted that declaration, Katie retreated with as much dignity as she could manage to a seat. She watched the receptionist commune with her two colleagues. Someone stifled a giggle, and her anxious face burned as she affected an interest she did not feel in the heavy-duty financial publications laid out for perusal on a coffee table. She was getting paranoid, she scolded herself. In all probability nobody was talking about her—just as the most likely explanation for what had happened outside was that Alexandros simply hadn’t recognised her.

She lifted an uncertain hand to her wet hair and suddenly reached round to undo her ponytail. She dug a comb out of her bag and surreptitiously began to tease out the limp damp curls, praying for her natural ringlets to emerge, rather than the pure frizz that had made her scrape her hair back so tightly when she was a teenager that her eyes had used to water. She wondered why she was bothering. He wouldn’t agree to see her.

While she sat there she finally registered a fact that should have occurred to her sooner. She had got his name totally wrong. Had Alexandros ever even received her letter telling him that she was pregnant? She had sent one to his Irish residence, and when there had been no answer she had sent a second one care of the rental company that had leased the house to him. But would a letter with the wrong name on it have been forwarded? What if Alexandros hadn’t got either?

‘Miss Fletcher?’ the receptionist murmured.

Katie stood up hurriedly. ‘Yes?’

‘I have a call for you.’

Surprise marking her delicate triangular features, Katie accepted the cordless phone extended to her.

‘Katie?’

It was Alexandros, and she was so taken aback by the sound of that dark melodic drawl of his that she almost dropped the phone. ‘Alexandros?’

‘I’m waiting for a fix on a satellite link and I’m afraid that I only have a few minutes. You’ve picked a bad day to call…’

‘The merger,’ she filled in, the receiver crammed tight to her ear as she wandered away in a preoccupied daze. His voice had an aching familiarity that tugged cruelly at her heartstrings and threatened to take her back in time. ‘But that’s why I came. I knew you’d be here, and I have to see you.’

‘Why?’ Alexandros enquired with the most studious casualness. Everything she had so far said was setting off warning bells of caution. ‘Do you need some sort of help? Is that why you asked to see me?’

‘Yes…but it’s not something I can discuss on the phone or without privacy,’ Katie told him tautly. ‘Just out of interest…er…did you ever receive a letter from me?’

‘No.’

‘Oh…’ Katie was stumped by that unhesitating negative, for if he didn’t even know that she had been pregnant he was in for a huge shock.

‘Why can’t you just tell me in brief what this is about?’ Alexandros enquired drily.

‘Because I have to see you to talk about it,’ she reminded him, feeling under unfair pressure and not knowing how to deal with it in the circumstances.

‘That may not be possible—’

Katie lowered her voice to say, almost pleadingly, ‘I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t desperate—’

‘Then cut to the chase,’ he cut in with cold clarity. ‘I’m not into mysteries.’

A surge of angry tears burned the back of Katie’s eyes. ‘Okay, so you won’t see me,’ she gasped. ‘But don’t say I didn’t give you the chance!’

With that ringing declaration, Katie cut the connection and marched back to the desk to return the phone. Before she could even set it down it started ringing again, and as she walked away the receptionist called her name a second time. She spun round. The handset was being offered to her. She shook her head in urgent refusal. She was uneasily conscious that quite a few people seemed to be staring in her direction, particularly a thin fair man with sharp eyes that made her colour. Without further ado she turned on her heel and headed hurriedly out of the bank.

She was furious that she had been so impulsive and naive. It had been downright stupid to try and speak to Alexandros again! He didn’t want to speak to her or hear from her, and the news that he was the father of twins would be even less welcome. She reckoned that the only way she was likely to get financial help from Alexandros now would be by approaching a solicitor to make a paternity claim. But she also knew that legal wheels turned very slowly, and would not provide an answer in the short term. So she needed to think about overcoming her scruples and approaching a newspaper, she conceded unhappily.

Alexandros would be very angry with her. A shard of all too vivid memory was assailing her. She remembered throwing a breakfast tray at him and screaming. His expression of shock would live with her to her dying day. It had dawned on her then that nobody had ever spoken to Alexandros like that before, or told him that he was absolute hell to work for and impossible to please. Her disrespect had affronted him. Only when he had been persuaded to see her side of things had he been willing to forgive the offence, and he had still ended up getting his own way. My way or the highway was a punchline that might have coined for Alexandros Christakis.

It took Katie an hour to get back to Leanne’s flat, but nobody was in when she got there. Her friend had warned her that she might go shopping with her mother, she recalled ruefully. As she walked back along the street, a limousine nudged into the kerb just ahead of her, and a big middle-aged man in a suit leapt out to jerk open the passenger door.

‘Mr Christakis would like to give you a lift,’ he announced.

Taken by surprise, she froze, studying the tinted black windows of the long glossy silver vehicle with frowning intensity before moving forward in abrupt acceptance of the invitation. Whether she liked it or not, she knew that it was the best offer she was likely to get. Her heartbeat racing so fast that she felt dizzy, she climbed into the limo.

CHAPTER TWO

ALEXANDROS dealt Katie a grim nod of acknowledgement that would have made her shiver, had not less cautious responses already been running rampant within her.

Lounging back in a black designer suit teamed with a striped shirt and smooth silk tie, he was the very image of the billionaire banker she had read about on the internet. Handsome, incredibly sophisticated, and intimidating to the nth degree though that sleek image was, there was also something impossibly sexy about him. She went hot pink with shame at that perverse thought. He had not lost the power to reduce her principles and her common sense to rubble round her feet.

‘If you wanted my attention, you’ve got it,’ Alexandros delivered with lethal cool, while he appraised her, his keen scrutiny highly critical. She had the heart-shaped face of a cat, big eyes above slanted cheekbones and a generous mouth. Unusual, rather exotic, but ultimately nothing special, with a tangle of bright copper hair that cruelly accentuated the hollows and shadows in her pale features. She was tiny and fine-boned—too thin for his tastes. By no stretch of the imagination was she beautiful—and some of the most beautiful women in the world had adorned his bed. He could not imagine why she had once made him seethe with lust.

Her lashes lifted on languorous eyes as rich and deep a green as moss. His gaze instantly narrowed, increasing in intensity almost without his volition. She shifted position with an indescribably feline movement of slender limbs that made his big powerful frame tense.

The silence stretched and stretched.

‘So…?’ Alexandros prompted, his dark drawl rough-edged as he fought the raw tide of sensual memory afflicting him. She had always smelt of soap and fresh air. The most expensive perfume in the world made her sneeze uncontrollably. He cleared his mind of that frivolous imagery with the rigorous restraint that had been second nature to him from his early twenties. He had learned then how to shut down and shut out unwelcome emotions and reactions. He thought it significant that he had got involved with Katie Fletcher when he had been emotionally off balance. Presumably, and ironically, that had added an extra edge which his encounters had lacked since then.

‘What’s this about?’ he asked with level austerity.

Just watching him, Katie felt her mouth run dry—because he was so incredibly handsome. She found herself tracing the image of her sons in his lean bronzed features, noting the straight dark brows, the definite chin and nose, and the ebony hair that gleamed with vitality. Her little boys were like mini-clones of their father. She lowered her lashes, discomfiture taking over, for what she had to tell him loomed over her like a mountain that shut out the sun. He would soon be wishing that he had never laid eyes on her, she thought painfully. ‘I wish you’d got that letter I sent you…’

To Alexandros she looked so young at that moment that guilt penetrated even his polished armour of self-containment. What lustful madness had overcome his scruples eighteen months ago? He might as well have seduced a schoolgirl. Every word she spoke underlined the reality that she had been defenceless. The other women he had known wouldn’t write him letters after he dumped them.

‘Let’s move on from the letter.’ Alexandros was now taking further note of her shabby clothes, and the fact that the sole was peeling off one of her trainers. Her poverty was obvious and his distrust increased. He could not forget the potential threat with which she had concluded their exchange on the phone. ‘What’s happened to you?’

Wretchedly aware of his visual inspection, and inwardly cringing from it, Katie muttered tightly, apologetically, ‘I know…I don’t look the same, do I? Life’s been tough over the past year—’

‘If you need money, I’ll give it to you. Drama and sob stories are not required,’ Alexandros imparted.

Her pointed chin came up in a defiant motion, her green eyes full of strain and hurt pride. ‘My goodness, did you think I was about to make you sit through some sob story? Well, then, I won’t try to wrap up the bad news. I’ll just get to the point. You got me pregnant…’

Astonished by that claim, Alexandros went straight into defensive mode, not a muscle moving on his darkly handsome face.

Katie was as pale as milk. ‘I wasn’t very pleased either. Well, to be honest, I was just terrified—’

‘Is this some kind of sting? It’s a very clumsy one.’

Her white brow indented. ‘A sting?’ she repeated blankly.

‘I don’t believe that I made you pregnant. Why would I only be hearing about it now?’ Alexandros demanded in a smooth, derisive undertone that suggested that what she had said was too stupid for words. ‘How can you expect me to believe this nonsense?’

‘The reason that you’re only hearing about it now is that you didn’t give me your address.’

‘But I left you a phone number.’

‘And I rang it more than a dozen times, and every time I was told you were unavailable or in a meeting!’ Her voice rose as she recalled how her sense of humiliation had grown with every fruitless phone call.

Alexandros continued to look stonily unimpressed. ‘I don’t accept that. My staff are very efficient—’

‘Eventually one of your employees got so tired of my calls that she took pity on me. She explained that I wasn’t on the special list she had. And, as she said, “If your name isn’t on my boss’s list, you won’t get to speak to him this side of eternity!”’ Katie completed rawly.

Alexandros was frowning. ‘Your name must have been on the list—’

‘No, it wasn’t. Why pretend? We both know why my name wasn’t on your fancy VIP list,’ Katie condemned, with a bitterness she could not hide. ‘You didn’t want to hear from me. You had no wish for further contact. That’s fine, that’s okay, but don’t try and criticise me for not telling you I was pregnant when I had no way of contacting you!’

‘You’re hysterical…I’m not continuing this conversation with you,’ Alexandros asserted with cold clarity, outrage turning his dark eyes into chips of gold ice because she had raised her voice.

Katie snatched in a deep, shuddering breath even as she wondered if he remembered her once serving him coffee on her knees to make him laugh. ‘I’m not hysterical. I’m sorry I’m so angry, but I can’t help it. I should’ve known this wasn’t going to work. I shouldn’t have come to your precious bank and I shouldn’t have got into this car—’

‘Calm down,’ Alexandros interposed with chilling cool, while he tried to work out her motivation for the tale she was telling so badly. He could not credit that what she was telling him was true. He was willing to admit that with her he had not been one hundred per cent careful when it had come to contraception. There was a very slight possibility that conception could have taken place. He thought it highly unlikely, though, and his usually alert and versatile mind was curiously reluctant to move on from that concrete conviction. He did not recognise his own unresponsiveness as simple shock at the announcement she had made.

Katie put trembling hands up to her face and covered it. Calm down? Her brow was pounding hard with tension; her tummy was in twisting knots. As he watched her, his lean hands clenched but he remained otherwise motionless.

On the other side of the glass partition, Cyrus was trying to catch his employer’s eye in the mirror, to work out where to go next. In a sudden decision, Alexandros touched a button to seal the passenger area into privacy. If she cried, he did not want her tears to be witnessed. ‘It’s all right,’ he told her grittily, for gentleness did not come naturally to him and he would not let himself reach across the space separating them to make physical contact with her. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘Nothing’s all right…’ Katie felt as if she was banging her head up against a brick wall. He wasn’t listening. He didn’t believe her. She was wasting her breath. He would probably look at Toby and Connor and find it equally easy to say that they weren’t his. Then what? She bowed her head, exhaustion overwhelming the nervous energy that had powered her into confronting him.

Alexandros recognised her fragile emotional state. She was desperate and broke. Presumably that was why she had come to him with a foolish story that she had hoped would engage his sympathy. It must not have occurred to her that a fictional tale about a pregnancy that had come to nothing was pointless. But his anger had already ebbed, to be replaced by an effort to understand her predicament that would have disconcerted anyone who knew him well. While he gave freely to a host of worthy charitable causes, he had always avoided situations where anything more personal was required.

‘Are you unemployed?’ he asked, deciding to concentrate on practicalities in the hope that those issues would ground her.

Katie darted a surprised glance at him above her fingers and slowly, carefully, lowered her hands back down on to her lap. ‘Yes.’

‘So you decided to approach me for…help. That’s okay.’ Alexandros resolved to offer assistance in every way he could. ‘Where are you living at present?’

Unsure where this dialogue could be heading, Katie blinked. ‘In a bed and breakfast hotel…I had to leave the bedsit I was in.’

Alexandros had not a clue what a bed and breakfast hotel was. But he knew a bedsit was one room, which he found shocking enough in the accommodation stakes. He surveyed her, wondering if she had lost weight because she wasn’t getting enough to eat. He was sincerely shaken by that thought. ‘Are you hungry?’

Slowly, she nodded, for it was hours since she had eaten, but his questions were bewildering her. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about the baby?’

The repetition of that unfortunate word ‘baby’ had the same effect on Alexandros as a bucket of cold water. His lean, strong face hardened. ‘I thought we had moved on from that improbable tale. It’s not winning you any points with me.’

Katie flushed a deep painful pink. ‘Why are you so convinced that I’m lying? Do I have to go through a solicitor for you to take me seriously?’

Almost imperceptibly Alexandros tensed; that reference to legal counsel did not fit the conclusions he had reached.

‘You just don’t want to know, do you?’ Katie shook her head in pained and angry embarrassment. ‘But I’m bringing up your children!’

‘My…children?’ Alexandros repeated in blunt disbelief. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘I had twins…Have you any idea how hard this is for me?’ Katie demanded chokily. ‘How do you think it feels for me to have to ask you for a hand-out?’

Twins! That single word hit Alexandros harder than any other. It was a fact known to few that he was a twin, whose sibling had been stillborn. ‘You’re telling me that you have given birth to twins?’

‘What do you care?’ she gasped. ‘Look, stop the car and let me out…I’ve had enough of this!’

‘Give me your address.’

While Alexandros opened the shutter between them and the chauffeur and communicated in Greek, she clasped her hands tightly together to conceal the fact that she couldn’t hold them steady.

Alexandros focussed bleak dark golden eyes on her. ‘What age are the twins?’

It dawned on her that he was finally listening to her. ‘Nearly ten months old.’

The improbable began to look ever more possible to Alexandros. Yet on another level he could not believe that he could find himself in such a situation. On every instinctive level he resisted that belief. ‘And you are saying that your children are mine?’

There was no mistaking how appalled Alexandros Christakis was by the idea that she might just be telling him the truth after all, Katie registered with a sinking heart. His vibrant skin tone had paled, and the stunned light in his gorgeous dark eyes spoke for him. ‘What else do you think I’m doing here? Oh, right—you’re still hoping it’s a sting. Sorry, I’m not a con-artist. The twins are yours and there’s no mistake about that.’

‘I will insist on DNA tests,’ Alexandros asserted.

Katie veiled her eyes, angrily reeling from that further insult as though he had struck her. How dared he? He was the only lover she had ever had, even if he had chosen not to acknowledge the fact. The harsh bite of hurt and rejection lurked behind her annoyance, but she stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. Never once since he’d walked away from her had she allowed herself to wallow in the pain of that loss.

Yet what more had she expected from Alexandros Christakis today? she asked herself unhappily. Had she dreamt of a welcome mat and immediate acceptance of her announcement? From a guy who had ditched her while carefully retaining his anonymity? A guy who had patently never thought about her again since then? Of course he wasn’t pleased, and he would never be pleased. Of course he was still hoping that there was some mistake or that she was a lying schemer.

After all, Alexandros Christakis had no feelings for her. She had been a casual sexual amusement when he’d been bored and at a loose end. Turning up again now as she had, looking scruffy and down on her luck, she was nothing but a source of embarrassment to a male of his sophistication and wealth. Add in her announcement about the twins, and she became the stuff of most single guys’ nightmares, she reflected painfully. He didn’t love her and he didn’t want to be with her, so what could fatherhood mean to him? Men only wanted a family with women they cared about. Alexandros wouldn’t want her children. Well, that was all right, she told herself doggedly. All she wanted and needed from him was financial help.

The limo came to a halt. In an abrupt movement that revealed his stress level, Alexandros broke free of his shield of reserve and closed a lean brown hand over hers. ‘If they are my children, I swear that I will support you in every way possible,’ he breathed in a driven undertone. ‘Give me your mobile number.’

‘I don’t have a phone.’

He dug a card out of his pocket, printed a number on it and extended it to her. ‘It’s my personal number.’

His personal number. Her eyes prickled and stung like mad. She wanted to scrunch the card up and throw it at him, because he had been so careful not to give her that number eighteen months earlier. Her throat was so thick with tears that she could hardly breathe, much less hurl the tart comment she wanted to fling. She had loved him so much. It had been a savage hurt when he’d rejected her, and to be forced back into his radius and made to feel as undesirable as the plague was salt in that wound.

Alexandros watched her cross the busy pavement. She moved with the sinuous grace and light step of a dancer. He tore his attention from her, refusing to acknowledge that reflection, and the door closed, leaving him alone with his bleak thoughts. If a man could be said to have ditched a woman with good intentions, he was that man. Now it seemed that although he owned the race in the cut-throat world of high finance, his private life was destined to be a disaster area. Once again he had screwed up. Once again he would have to pay the price. As she had paid it. Just what he needed, he reflected with a bitterness he could not suppress: a guilt trip that would last the rest of his life.

How likely was it that her children were his? He remembered Katie’s indiscreet, straight-from-the heart forthrightness. He had found her honesty such a novelty. There had been no half-truths and no evasions. Very refreshing—until she’d said those fatal words he could not stand to hear on another woman’s lips. I love you—that little phrase that Ianthe had made so much her own.

Why had he let Katie get out of the limo? Chances were she was telling the truth and he was the father of her twins. He suppressed a shudder. He knew exactly what was required of him. He knew he had absolutely no business thinking about himself or about how he felt. He had dug his own grave. He recalled that Katie didn’t even have a phone. He swore long and low under his breath. Perhaps she needed food more.

‘You have appointments, boss,’ Cyrus remarked in an apologetic tone.

Alexandros ignored that reminder. Acting purely on impulse, he went to Harrods and bought an enormous hamper, and the latest mobile phone in Katie’s favourite colour. His own out-of-character behaviour seriously spooked him. He called his lawyer. His lawyer called for legal reinforcements and urged crisis talks, DNA specialists and extreme prudence. Alexandros might still have acted on his gut instincts, had it not been for the timely reminder of the potential for a huge scandal. Personal visits and gifts, it was pointed out, would only reinforce any claims made against him, and add to the risk of sordid publicity.

‘Your grandparents…’

The reminder was sufficient to halt Alexandros in his tracks. Pelias and Calliope Christakis would be very distressed if an unsavoury scandal engulfed their grandson. The older couple were not of an age where their continuing good health could be taken for granted either. In the short term, Alexandros grudgingly accepted that a discreet and cautious course would be wisest.

Katie was intercepted before she could climb the stairs to her room.

‘Miss Fletcher?’

It was the same thin fair man she had seen watching her in the foyer of CTK bank. ‘Yes?’

He handed her his card as an introduction. ‘I’m Trev. I work for the Daily Globe. Mind me asking what your connection to Alexandros Christakis is?’

Taken aback, Katie muttered, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’

‘But you do. You just got out of the bloke’s limo!’

‘You saw me? Did you follow me all the way from the bank? And to my friend’s as well?’ Katie was unnerved by that awareness, and turned towards the stairs again.

The reporter was in her way. ‘I hear you have a couple of kids…’

‘What’s that got to do with you?’

‘Christakis is a very interesting guy. If you have anything to tell us about him it could be well worth your while,’ he told her with a meaningful look. ‘People don’t talk about him. He lives in a world most of us can only envy. So anything of an exciting personal nature would have a very high cash value.’

Katie hesitated, distaste filling her. She wanted to tell him to get lost and leave her alone. If only Alexandros had given her a more concrete promise of support than a phone number! Leanne had said that she should be prepared to do anything to give Toby and Connor a better start in life. But talking to a newspaper in return for money struck her as sleazy, and she wanted to think that she was above doing that sort of thing. And yet she was also painfully aware that it was her job to provide her children with a decent home, and achieving that would require cold hard cash.

‘We’re on your trail now, so if there’s any dirt to dig we’ll find it anyway.’ Threat and warning were linked in Trev’s hopeful appraisal. ‘So why don’t you make it easier for us and turn a profit too?’

‘I’m not interested.’ Even as she spoke, Katie did not know whether or not she was making the right decision.

An hour later she went back to Leanne’s, to pick up Toby and Connor. While her friend saw her mother out of the flat, Katie scooped up her sons, one at a time out of the buggy, and hugged them tight. After a busy morning of occupation, Toby gave her a huge sunny smile, and Connor laughed.

‘So, tell…’ Leanne urged impatiently. ‘What happened? Did you get to see Alexandros?’

Katie explained, while her friend listened with avid interest and made her describe the limo in detail.

‘Alexandros is obviously stinking rich.’ A calculating expression formed on Leanne’s pretty face. ‘And the best offer he can make you is a DNA test?’ she sneered. ‘He’ll need to do a lot better than that!’

‘He was shocked…I’ll give him a couple of days and see what happens.’ Katie displayed the card she had been given by the journalist to the brunette.

‘Whoopy-do!’ Leanne snatched the card to study it, more impressed by the interest of the Daily Globe than by anything else. ‘This Trev took the trouble to follow you? Hey, Alexandros must be a real celebrity! And you turned the reporter’s offer down? Are you out of your tiny mind?’

‘I have to give Alexandros a chance to help us first.’

‘But if the press find out whose kids Toby and Connor are without your input, you won’t make any money at all!’

Katie was beginning to feel uncomfortable. ‘I know, but I don’t think anyone will work out what my relationship was with Alexandros any time soon. I mean, nobody knows about us—’

‘You could make pots of money out of this, Katie. Haven’t you got the guts to go for it?’ her friend demanded

‘Alexandros would hate that kind of publicity, and he’d never forgive me for it.’

‘So what? What’s he to you?’

‘He’ll always be the twins’ father. I don’t want to make an enemy of him. Flogging our story to the newspapers has to be a last resort for me.’

Leanne gave her a scornful look. ‘You’re being really stupid about this. There’s money to be made. Your problem is that you’ve still got feelings for that bastard—’

Katie was affronted by that suggestion. ‘No, I haven’t!’

‘Much good it’ll do you. He doesn’t want to know now, does he?’ Leanne sniped, and soon after that Katie thought it wisest to thank the brunette for looking after the twins and go.

Mid-morning the following day, a young man in casual clothing came to her door. ‘Are you Katie Fletcher?’

At her nod of confirmation, he extended a mobile phone to her.

‘I’m a solicitor, engaged to represent a certain person’s interests, Miss Fletcher,’ the brisk voice on the phone informed her. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand the need for discretion in this case. Are you willing to undergo DNA testing?’

Katie was taken by surprise, but recognised that such speed of action was essentially an Alexandros Christakis trait. ‘Yes…’

‘Then sign the consent form and the matter will be taken care of immediately, with the minimum of disruption.’

An envelope and a pen were passed to her, the phone returned. Her caller departed. She drew out a brief document, scanned it with strained eyes and then scrawled her signature. Alexandros was doing what came naturally to him. It was insulting and humiliating, but also a necessary evil if she was to prove her claim. Within half an hour a doctor arrived with a medical bag. He explained that the test consisted of painless mouth swabs being taken from her and the twins. In a matter of minutes he had carried out the procedure and smoothly taken his leave again.

She walked the floor that evening, trying to soothe Toby. Although it was barely nine o’clock, someone banged on the wall to complain, and a man knocked at the door and asked her to keep her kids quiet because he was a shift worker trying to get some sleep. Tears were tracking down Katie’s weary face while she struggled to quieten Toby, who seemed to have no more notion of sleeping at night than an owl. It was impossible for her not to look back and wonder how her life had drifted so far off the course she had assumed it would follow…

After Katie’s English father had died, her mother had taken her daughter back to Ireland to live. Katie had enjoyed a happy childhood in a small town where everyone had known everyone else. Armed with an honours degree in Economics, she had been ecstatic when she’d got her first job as a PA in London. But when her mother had fallen ill she had had to resign and return home.

In spite of her ill health, Maura Fletcher had insisted on keeping up a couple of part-time jobs. Fearful of losing her livelihood, the older woman had only been persuaded to take the doctor’s advice and rest when Katie had agreed to stand in for her until she regained her strength.

Maura had acted as caretaker and occasional housekeeper at a superb contemporary house which overlooked a sea inlet a few miles from their home. Owned by a German industrialist and rarely occupied, the property lay down a long gated track and enjoyed an incredibly private and beautiful setting. Katie had one day prepared the house for the occupation of a single mystery guest. A car accident had put the two domestic staff travelling with Alexandros out of commission and the rental agency, unaware that Katie was doing her mother’s job for her, had recommended her parent as temporary cook and cleaner.

A fax had followed, detailing more exact requirements, and Katie had been staggered by the number of rules she was expected to observe, ranging from meals to be served at rigid hours and a duty on her part to being both invisible and silent. On the other hand, the salary offered had been generous enough to bring a delighted smile to her mother’s anxious face, and the cutting-edge equipment being installed in the office with a sea view and a balcony had suggested that the guest would be much too busy to pay heed to the amateur level of the household help. Of course, accustomed as Alexandros was to perfection in every field, he had refused to settle for less, and Katie, secretly resenting the role of servant, had refused to be suitably humble. That they should clash had been inevitable.

No passage of time could eradicate Katie’s memory of her first glimpse of Alexandros. After he had arrived by helicopter, he had gone straight down to the seashore. From about twenty yards away she had watched him, dumbstruck by his sleek, dark, masculine magnificence. Clad in jeans and a husky grey cashmere sweater, and even with his black hair tousled by the breeze and designer stubble obscuring his stubborn jawline, he had bewitched her. She had never known a man could be that physically beautiful, or seem so alone and isolated. Wanton desire and longing had leapt up in her that very first moment, and she had never been able to overcome it…

Someone rapped at the door and she studied it in dismay, fearing another complaint just when Toby had mercifully subsided to the occasional long-drawn-out whimper of dissatisfaction. Tiptoeing over, she eased the door open a crack, for she was dressed in her pyjamas, and then fell back in complete confusion.

‘May I come in?’ Alexandros asked grimly, his dignity having been severely ruffled by Cyrus’s insistence that it was necessary for his employer to enter the building in a clandestine manner and via an alley full of dustbins. An instant later Alexandros’ irritation had vanished into the ether—a triviality when set next to the cold shock of his surroundings…

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